Well done to our Foundation students who sang beautifully a ‘Happy Father’s Day’ song to all their Daddies for our Father’s Day parade!

 

Please click on the page ‘Ripponlea Primary Choir’  to download all the songs and lyrics we are now learning in Ripponlea Primary Choir Club.

We are still recruiting new members so if you are in Grade 2 – 6 and like what we are learning please come along to the Music Room Monday mornings before school 8.15 – 9.00.  Ripponlea Primary Choir needs your voice!

Kinder began their music lessons last week and have been learning some fun nursery rhymes as well as playing some classroom instruments!  We have learnt lots of fund action songs and new dances!

 

Foundation have started their learning about tempo! We have been learning to sing a ‘mirror’ song and how to move at different levels.  Videos to follow!

In Grade 1 and 2 we are learning about pitch.  We can all play ‘Once a Man Fell in a Well’ on the xylophones.  We are currently learning a song about a Ripponlea Roof Top Cat! Today we learnt to play the melody of ‘Roof Top Cat’ on pitched instruments – please click on the video below to watch 1/2C performing.

In Grades 3 and 4 we are learning about pentatonic scales and how to play the xylophones, glockenspiels and marimba instruments.  So far we have learnt to play a song by Jon Madin, ‘I Wanna C’.  We are currently learning to play an obstinato part to accompany our pentatonic song of ‘Tideo’. Please see a video of Class 3/4C playing ‘I wanna C’.

In Grades 5 and 6  this term we are learning body percussion and rhythmic skills.  We have so far all learnt to play a tricky clapping sequence to accompany the song of ‘Epic Patty Cake’.  Great job Grade 5 and 6!

 

RIPPONLEA PRIMARY CHOIR NEEDS YOUR VOICE!

Choir Club will now be in the Music Room on Monday mornings from 8.15am – 9.00am with Alex.  We start this Monday 30th July so please come along. It is open to any student from Grade 2 to Grade 6.

If you want to learn some fun songs, improve your singing and feel the positive benefits of singing with friends in a group then please come along.  It will be a great way to start the day and the week.

Parents please encourage your children to attend to boost numbers of Ripponlea Primary Choir  🙂

Hi, I am the current Performing Arts teacher.  I completed my Primary school teacher training in the UK and worked as a Performing Arts teacher in the South West of England.  I have spent the last year teaching Music in a large British International School in Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam.  I am now establishing myself in Melbourne and am keen to share my international experience in the Australian classroom.

I am passionate about music education and encouraging all children to learn a musical instrument and find their singing voice.  The cello is my main instrument.  At the age of eighteen, I moved to London to complete a Music degree at Goldsmiths College, University of London.  I explored various genres and compositions and was introduced to a wide range of ensembles and musicians. Because of this, I spent a number of years working as a session musician in London playing concerts and contributing to a variety of recording and live music projects across Europe.

In my spare time, I love to play music with others, cook and surf!

If your child is keen to learn an instrument then please let me know. I will be in the Music Room Monday-Wednesday so please feel free to come in and meet me.

Please follow this blog to see what your child is learning in their lessons with me and in Ripponlea Choir Club.

James Hill is a Canadian musician and educator who together with others set up a nation-wide music curriculum using ukulele as the ‘tool’ to impart musical concepts and skills. I came across him many years ago when first exploring options other than recorder to give our students something different and engaging. It has proved a popular and successful program to implement in the Years 3 & 4 and has been enjoying a revival and popularity in a lot of schools now and in public and community music playing.

What I like about it is that that we can explore concepts of harmony and melody and it encourages singing and songwriting. It is also is  affordable instrument that students can acquire for their own use at home and with the wonderful resources available now on the internet continue their music making outside of school and even when they move on to high school. At one Ripponlea Estate Christmas event a few years ago one of the solo acts was a Ripponlea ex- student who was singing and playing an original christmas song on her ukulele!

It has helped immensely as well that popular artists like Vance Joy have chosen ukulele as their accompanying instrument for their own songs and ‘Riptide’ has certainly become standard repertoire for a lot of budding musicians.

Here the students are following strumming patterns using the the chords they are progressively learning.

The whiteboards are for them to write their own strumming patterns to share with each other and the class as a whole in a ‘call and response’ way.

Our goals by the end of this term are to be able to play at least 3 chords on the ukulele in various strumming patterns, to be able to play and sing the School Song and to have made up our own musical composition in an ABA form.

 

Imagination and creativity enables us to make music and express ourselves with just about anything!

Our spotlight for this post is on our Year Ones and Twos, who for a few weeks have become ‘Sound Explorers’. We are linking into their current inquiry unit where the big idea is ‘Light and Sound can be produced by a range of sources and can be sensed’.

We have watched performances of street musicians playing on lots of different materials and constructed instruments from all sorts of random objects. We have observed an  amazing natural playground in Western Australian where handmade instruments are integrated into the landscape and encourage music making together while playing outside.

We have played a large assortment of sound makers in the music room, thinking about what they are made of and how they can sound different depending on how and with what we choose to play them.

 

We are wondering if you can experience sound not just with our ears but also with our sense of sight and touch?  Is it possible to be a musician or even to hear music if you are deaf? How can that be?

The children will explore these ideas over the next few weeks both in their classroom and in music and already there is excitement as they play and discover things together, making connections and deepening their understanding of how things work.

Check out some photos and video clips of the students finding sounds in their own playground!

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Here it is the end of the term already. When we return after the holidays we have 7 weeks before the Ripponlea 2017 School Concert hits the stage! Make sure TUESDAY AUGUST 29th is in your diaries and on your calendars.

Fiona Harris has given the script its  last tweaking and  the 5/6’s have auditioned and been assigned roles. Now it is up to all the students with speaking lines to make sure they learn them over the holidays in preparation for group rehearsals.

This term also all the classes have successfully participated in Stomp Dance Workshops and learnt a choreographed dance for the production. This  will continue to be practised and polished in the weeks leading up to our concert.

Mike McLeish has once again put his song writing talent into action for us and the holiday vibe of the opening song and celebratory tone of the finale will send you into these holidays with a smile!

The lyrics, demonstration and karaoke tracks are on this blog, on the page in the menu bar titled ‘School Concert 2017.’

Singing songs and learning lines is a great way to make long car trips pass quickly and even shorter jaunts in and around the city can be productively used to become a little more familiar with lyrics and lines.

It has been a musically focussed term and after the break we will be honing our other performing arts skills in order to bring you yet another amazing, colourful and entertaining School Concert!

Happy Holidays.

TERM TWO MUSIC ROOM HIGHLIGHTS

Here we are in Term 2 already and there has been a lot of enthusiastic and creative music making happening in the music room.

Foundation students have been exploring the concepts of musical and non-musical sounds, high and low, loud and soft, fast and slow.

The Year 1/2’s have been playing around with the music alphabet, singing and playing songs on assorted tuned percussion instruments and writing their own nonsense stories using words they can play on their chime bars.

Year 3/4’s have been exploring the musical concepts of melody and harmony using keyboards, guitars, ukuleles and the marimba and experimenting with song arrangements using technology tools like Garage Band and other online music software, including Chrome music lab. Just last week which you can see on the 3/4blog, students from 3/4a led their level in a lesson using ‘Incredibox.’

I love to see the enthusiastic sharing that goes on in the 5/6 level as the students collaborate and create musical experiences together.Choosing personal music  goals and then following through on them has been a challenge for all of us and managing that in a practical sense in only one weekly lesson hasn’t been easy. However there has been some exciting and wonderful achievements and a great degree of engagement and enthusiasm for their self-directed work.

 

 

FOSTERING A GROWTH MINDSET IN MUSIC AND EVERYTHING!

Evelyn Glennie is an inspirational musician who for me is the epitome of someone who demonstrates ‘A Growth Mindset’. Profoundly deaf by the age of twelve, Evelyn has taught herself to use her whole body as her ‘ear’ and performs professionally as a full time solo percussionist. Her’s is an amazing story of someone who daily practices a way of thinking that helps her remain curious, strategic and positive, spreading her passion for getting people to ‘truly listen’.

This year in Performing Arts fostering this way of thinking is going to be a focus as we go about making, creating and performing expressive arts works.We will be looking at what having a ‘Growth Mindset’ means and using it to help us in our learning endeavours.We will also be exploring the notion of ‘PRACTICE’, a word that conjures up lots of different emotions and feelings I’m sure in all of us. Something we probably remember being told to do as  children  but never really shown the HOW or even a convincing WHY. What does motivate those amongst us who spend hours weekly pursuing a passion or  long term goal. Look out for interviews with some of our dedicated Ripponlea students over these next weeks.

It is also the anticipated year of the biennial SCHOOL CONCERT! The script is  currently being written by Fiona Harris, and once again is shaping up to be a rollicking entertaining story the students will really enjoy rehearsing and performing. They will participate in Stomp dance classes in second term to create and learn the choreography for the story.

For those students in Years 3-6 who love to sing, Choir will commence on a Tuesday lunchtime after swimming has finished in Week 5.

It is exciting to be working with all the year levels again in 2017 and I am really looking forward to helping the Year 5/6’s determine their own musical goals for the year and assisting them in their planning and practical steps towards accomplishing them.

Examples of students work in the music classroom will be highlighted in this  blog but will also appear in their classroom blogs from time to time as well.

Please take the time to view this music blog and feel free to make comments and suggestions as we work together to make Performing Arts at Ripponlea a vibrant, imaginative learning experience.